Four-time Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said on Sunday the Crimean people had made a democratic choice to split from Ukraine and hailed Russian President Vladimir Putin as the world's greatest political leader. Earlier this month, Berlusconi became the most prominent Western politician to visit the Black Sea peninsula, which was annexed by Russia last year in a move that has driven a wedge between Moscow and Washington. Pro-Russian separatists are fighting the Kiev government in eastern Ukraine, a conflict that will most likely be raised at a meeting on Monday in New York between U.S. President Barack Obama and...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said on Saturday he will force a vote soon on a resolution to disapprove the Trump administration's decision to relax sanctions on three Russian companies connected to oligarch Oleg Deripaska…{snip} ...The U.S. Treasury announced on Dec. 20 that it would lift sanctions imposed in April on the core businesses of Deripaska, including aluminum giant Rusal its parent En+ and power firm EuroSibEnergo, watering down the toughest penalties imposed since Moscow's 2014 annexation of Crimea. After lobbying by European governments that followed the imposition of sanctions, Washington postponed enforcement of the sanctions...

German army plans to recruit foreign mercenaries in bid to plug thousands of vacancies and fulfil its NATO commitment after Trump said he would cut off funding Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen announced plans in ministry documents Poles, Italians and Romanians living in Germany will be targeted by recruiters US President Donald Trump has pressured Germany to up its NATO commitment Germany's military is drawing up plans to recruit nationals from other European countries as part of a drive to beef up the armed forces. Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen announced plans to recruit Poles, Italians and Romanians,...

Kiev, December 24, Interfax - President Pyotr Poroshenko has signed into law a bill compelling the Ukrainian Orthodox Church to specify its affiliation with the Russian Orthodox Church in its name, a statement on the presidential website said. The bill "On changes to the Ukrainian law on the freedom of conscience and religious organizations," approved by parliament on December 20, concerns the names of religious organizations which form part of a larger religious organization headquartered outside Ukraine, "in a state which was found by law to have carried out a military aggression against Ukraine and (or) temporarily occupied a part...

Struggling to fill its ranks, Germany’s military is drawing up plans to recruit nationals from other European countries as part of a drive to beef up the armed forces. Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen wants to recruit Poles, Italians and Romanians, magazine Der Spiegel said, citing a ministry document. The German military, or Bundeswehr, has stepped up its recruitment efforts as part of a broader reset following Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. Last year, Germany said it would increase the size of its armed forces to 198,000 active soldiers by 2024 from 179,000. Pressure on Berlin...

Putin won another term in March with 77 percent of the vote, but, as in every election in the Putin era, researchers have found statistical evidence of vote rigging. Although the fraud worked for Putin, it failed to produce results in a series of gubernatorial elections this year...Voters are finding it easier to resist manipulation and cheating. The discontent developed in large part because of Putin’s decision to raise the retirement age to 63 from 55 for women and to 65 from 60 for men, a step that successive Russian governments haven’t had the courage to take since the Soviet...

Ukrainian Orthodox priests are due to hold a historic council in Kiev to create a new national church - a move condemned as schism by Russian clergy. This comes after the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, the spiritual leader of the world's Orthodoxy, recognised the independence of the Ukrainian Church from Moscow.

Ukraine’s future is again bound up in the political ambitions of Yulia Tymoshenko. The fate of the two-time prime minister and her country are once more tightly woven together — like the blonde halo braid that made her an international icon. Only this time, Ukraine is at war, and that means Tymoshenko’s third run for president could have implications far beyond her country’s borders, potentially rewriting relations between Russia and the West and unbalancing the geopolitical order.

Andrzej Zybertowicz, an adviser to Polish President Andrzej Duda, said during a discussion aired by public broadcaster TVP Info that the West decided when the Cold War was over that there was no threat from Russia. It pinpointed terrorism as the greatest threat, resulting in most intelligence and counterintelligence services focusing on combating terror, Zybertowicz said. “This resulted in the activities of Russian agents, including those of agents of influence, cutting through the elites of Western countries like a knife through butter." "We have here is the limited capacity of Western leadership elites to oppose aggressive policies. This could have...

In a stunning sequence of events, the Russian military opened fire then seized three Ukrainian navy vessels in an unprovoked attack on the Black Sea last Sunday. In the melee, several Ukrainian sailors were wounded and 24 captured. Moscow followed up this flagrant act of war by parading the sailors on Russian television to give clearly coerced confessions of guilt. This attack is but the latest escalation in the ongoing Russian war against Ukraine that has been churning since 2014. It’s also the first great test for the Trump administration regarding Russia and one that will have lasting consequences on...

Hungary fully stands by Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty and this will continue to be a part of Hungary’s foreign policy in the future, too, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said on Tuesday. Hungary also devotes special attention to the 150,000 ethnic Hungarians living in western Ukraine’s Transcarpathia region, Szijjártó told a press conference in Budapest. Szijjártó noted that when Ukraine began enlisting soldiers due to the conflict in its eastern regions, he held talks with his Ukrainian counterpart at the request of Transcarpathian Hungarian Cultural Association (KMKSZ) leader László Brenzovics about the enlistment of Transcarpathian Hungarians. Szijjártó said his colleague...

Krzysztof Szczerski, chief foreign policy adviser to Polish President Andrzej Duda, was speaking after the Ukrainian navy said Russian special forces had seized three of its ships in the Sea of Azov on Sunday. "We consider the situation serious because it may have far-reaching consequences for both the internal politics of Ukraine and the entire region," Szczerski told Poland’s PAP news agency in an interview. The Sea of Azov is bounded by Ukraine to the north and west, and by Russia to the east. To the south it is linked by the Strait of Kerch to the Black Sea. The...

On October 17, 2018, a student at a technical college in the Crimean city of Kerch carried out a Columbine-style rampage attack. He committed suicide at the end of his attack. He killed 20 people and wounded 70 more, many of them severely. I will not mention his name. It is included in the excerpt below. There are very restrictive gun control laws in place in Crimea.The murderer legally obtained a shotgun by performing all that was required, including a medical exam, and joining a local gun club. He purchased 150 rounds of ammunition a month before the attack. In...

Kul-Oba an ancient archaeological site, a Scythian burial tumulus (kurgan), located near Kerch in eastern Crimea. Kul-Oba was the first Scythian royal barrow to be excavated in modern times. Uncovered in 1830, the stone tomb yielded a wealth of precious artifacts which drew considerable public interest to Scythian world. Of particular interest is an intricately granulated earring with two Nike figurines and Serpent-Legged Goddess, now in the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg.The tomb was built around 400 to 350 BC. The body of the king lay by the east wall on a sumptuous wooden couch. His social position was highlighted by...

Russia, through its 2014 invasion of Ukraine and its attempted annexation of Crimea, sought to undermine a bedrock international principle shared by democratic states: that no country can change the borders of another by force. The states of the world, including Russia, agreed to this principle in the United Nations Charter, pledging to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. This fundamental principle — which was reaffirmed in the Helsinki Final Act — constitutes one of the foundations upon which our shared security and safety rests. As we did...

Russian President Vladimir Putin has claimed that the attack on Kerch Technical College, and the deaths by now of 21 people, most of them teenagers, was the result of ‘globalization.' It is not a view shared by many people who have watched with concern the mounting militarization of Crimean society in general, and children in particular, under Russian occupation. While we do not know, and perhaps never will, what went on in the head of 18-year-old Vladislav Roslyakov before he went on his killing rampage, the atmosphere in Crimea and the attitude to war and weapons have certainly changed alarmingly...

On Orthodox Easter, Russian Patriarch Kirill addressed scores of the faithful, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. He likened the resurrection of Christ—who, in Orthodox parlance, “trampled down death by death”—to the Russian, née Soviet, victory over the Nazis. Kirill’s religious praise of Soviet victory is nothing new. Under Josef Stalin, the Soviet Union tried tapping into the nation’s “enormous spiritual strength” by reviving the Orthodox Church in Russia, albeit in a limited capacity. Realizing the power the church had to unite Russia and its near abroad—and seeking to bring Nazi-controlled territory back under Soviet influence,...

"It all started with the tragic events in the United States, in the schools of the United States," Vladimir Putin told the Valdai discussion forum in Sochi in southern Russia. As Russians struggle to come to terms with a horrific US-style school shooting in Crimea, which has left at least 20 people dead and dozens injured, Kremlin-controlled media are blaming the "corrupting influence" of the West for inspiring the attack. This person was under the strong influence of Western subculture," said Sergey Mikheyev, a political analyst speaking on a nightly current-affairs show on Russian state television. "Western subculture builds its...

At least 19 people were killed and dozens injured at a college in the Black Sea region of Crimea on Wednesday when a student went through the building shooting at fellow pupils before killing himself, Russian law enforcement officials said. Eighteen-year-old Vladislav Roslyakov turned up at the college in the city of Kerch on Wednesday afternoon carrying a firearm and then began shooting, investigators said. His body was later found in the college with what they said were self-inflicted gunshot wounds. There were no immediate clues as to his motive in mounting such an attack, which recalled similar shooting sprees...

MOSCOW — It would be one of the world’s more unusual direct flights. But bringing Syrian soldiers and civilians to a Black Sea resort is exactly what was on offer Tuesday, when a delegation from Crimea visited Damascus, the Syrian capital. “We understand that restrictions related to trade, money transfers and tourism are similar to what we have in Crimea,” said Prime Minister Sergei Aksyonov, Russia’s top official there. Both Syria and Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine four years ago, have been hit by Western sanctions, and their economies are struggling. “We should turn our minuses into our advantages,”...